contagiousness

Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

n. Quality of being contagious.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

n. The quality of being contagious.

Etymologies

contagious +‎ -ness (Wiktionary)

Examples

A key missing piece is information about H1N1's contagiousness, which is measured in what's called a basic reproduction number - the average number of new infections produced by a single infected person, assuming no one is immune to the virus.

In the middle ages sufferers of leprosy in some parts of the world were made to wear bells and use separate currency due to the assumed contagiousness of the disease, and as recently as 1985 it was still considered a significant health issue in 122 countries.

“In descending order of likelihood of extinction of the species: collision with meteors above a certain combined mass and velocity; eruption of volcanoes that produce above a certain amount of certain kinds of ejecta; plagues above a certain mortality rate and contagiousness; war employing weapons above a certain level and permanence of destructive power; stellar events that decrease the viability of life—”